Shadow Slave

With a faint smile on her face, Nephis nodded and raised her sword, pointing it at him in invitation. Sunny summoned the Sin of Solace and took a stance opposite her. From the Forgotten Shore to the basement of his home in the peaceful terrace district, they had trained with each other numerous times. This simple sequence of actions was as natural for them as breathing.

However, today, there was an awkward pause.

Sunny scratched the back of his head and glanced at the jade jian.

"That... isn't going to work, is it?"

Nephis seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, looking at him sheepishly.

'No, what the hell... since when does she know how to emote? This is just too cute...'

He coughed.

The problem facing them was that both had grown too powerful - and, subsequently, the weapons they used were too powerful, too. The Sin of Solace was a Transcendent Memory of the Fifth Tier, and quite a harrowing one at that. Sunny was not entirely sure what the level of Neph's longsword was, but it had to be quite a menacing weapon, as well, considering that it had come from the soul arsenal of a Saint.

It would be already bad enough if the Sin of Solace damaged or destroyed it. But what if Sunny was not careful enough and scratched Nephis in the process? The curse of madness carried by the jade blade would either crush her mental defenses, or at least put debilitating pressure on her mind for a period of time.

Standing some distance away, the spirit of the jian smiled.

"No, no. Don't worry... I'll be gentle."

However, that smile of his was more than a little bit sinister.

Sunny frowned, then dismissed the jade sword and got lost in thought for a few moments. Eventually, a smile of delight appeared on his lips.

"Let's do this."

flowed toward him, then slowly formed into two inky black swords. One of them was a fearsome odachi, while the other was an

easy to create - this was one of the shapes Sunny had practiced relentlessly, after all. The longsword was a little bit tricky, since he had never created one before. Nevertheless, he was familiar with it

a weapon would be easier than shaping them into articulated hands, since weapons were

sword had to possess certain characteristics to feel right in the hand - weight, balance, flexibility and rigidity, center of percussion that Neph had recently mentioned, and so

had even studied a bit of blacksmithing on the network. Back then, Clan Valor had been preventing him from visiting

Shadow Manifestation, and shaping was only the most basic of them. Sunny could also affect the material composition of the manifested shadows, although that demanded a higher essence expenditure. He could manipulate the density of

internal transformations had been very difficult to achieve, but after inventing

was

curiously took the shadow weapon from his hand, he secretly held his breath. She weighed the

"That works."

smile and raised

"Let's begin, then."

of Solace was a piece of art in the form of a jian, but Sunny's heart still lay with blades like this one. Maybe because it was what he had learned swordsmanship with, wielding Midnight Shard on the Forgotten Shore. Not to mention all the fun times he

odachi slightly, Sunny pushed himself forward and

and a light shape could be seen, moving across the green moss as they weaved and circled around each other. It was as

'She really has improved...'

to control both the battlefield and the enemy,

same. The offensive and defensive moves

deliver her into the best possible position to attack. Each strike packed a devastating punch that seemed too extreme even for an Ascended Terror. Her defense was nearly impenetrable, alternating between immovable hardness and inviting softness, which dissipated the force of Sunny's attacks and made him feel as though he was drowning in

he was drowning in

she so

was not as though Sunny did not understand the same principles Neph had spoken about. The relationship between

his battle skill, so much so that it had become second nature to him. By manipulating how much his body, or various parts of it, weighed on the fly, he was able